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Mining Education and Innovation

NEWS RELASE: The Government of Canada Invests in Mining Research

International Minerals Innovation Institute Develops a Mining Minerals Research Cluster in Collaboration with the Universities of Regina and Saskatchewan

SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN–(Marketwired – Jan. 28, 2016) – Western Economic Diversification Canada

The Government of Canada and the International Minerals Innovation Institute (IMII) today announced that the IMII, on behalf of its potash industry and provincial government members, has entered into research funding agreements with the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan. These agreements will see the development of the Mining Materials Research Cluster in Saskatchewan, which will conduct research into the corrosion of materials used in the fabrication of mineral processing and mining equipment used in Saskatchewan’s potash industry.

Under the terms of the agreements, the IMII will fund the Research Cluster for four years to a maximum of $1,200,000. It will be supported by funding from the Government of Canada through Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and MITACS.

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Canada must focus on innovation economy to thrive in digital age – by Don Tapscott (Toronto Star – January 24, 2016)

http://www.thestar.com/

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND—As the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum enters its final quarter, there continues to be a lot of buzz about Canada in General and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in particular.

Trudeau had a hectic day Friday that included meetings with international leaders and a session in the grand Congress Hall on gender equality that included Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook and Melinda Gates from the Gates Foundation.

The annual Canadian cocktail party was jammed and the crowd was nothing less than ebullient. My wife, Ana Lopes, and I must have heard people say half a dozen times something to the effect of “you must be so proud of your prime minister.” Heady times for sure. No doubt the PMO is enjoying it but also fully aware of the concept of a honeymoon.

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Turning Sudbury’s regreening expertise into actual green – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – January 08, 2016)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

Protocol under development aims to turn local environmental knowledge into marketable product

Sudbury’s environmental destruction and subsequent reclamation is one of the city’s defining moments. From a blackened, barren nickel capital to a beacon of regreening and responsible mining around the world, Sudbury has come a long way since the 1970s.

A major project is germinating between the mayor’s office and Laurentian University that would capitalize on the expertise built from the recovery process.

Laurentian’s vice-president of research, Rui Wang, had introduced the Sudbury Protocol at the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation’s (GSDC) first Resourceful City talk in November.

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Mining industry failing in environmental conduct – by Douglas Morrison (Northern Ontario Business – January 7, 2016)

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

For the metal mining industry around the world, typically producing grades of less than five per cent, it is the management of waste rock and tailings (sand- and silt-sized particles of rock from around the grains of valuable mineral) that has the greatest potential impact on the environment.

And so it is the greatest point of concern for the public at large. The public is not concerned about commodity prices, mine productivity or even safety issues in mines, but it is concerned about our impact on the environment.

The only measure of success that counts is environmental performance, and we are failing.

In Canada, we can be proud of the fact that it was largely our consultants and their mining company clients that were responsible for developing the guidelines used to manage tailings management facilities (TMFs) around the world.

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[Geography of Genius] Searching the world for our inner genius – by Martin Regg Cohn (Toronto Star – January 7, 2016)

http://www.thestar.com/

A new book explains how places of genius are products of geography and history, demography and community.

If Kathleen Wynne wants to make Ontario smarter, The Geography of Genius should be on her post-holiday reading list.

Fresh from her trips to China and Silicon Valley late last year, and poised to visit India later this month, the premier is on a journey of economic discovery. With our industrial base in historic decline and rival economies on the ascendant, she joins other peripatetic politicians in trying to incubate an innovation future at home.

Wynne is not alone in her ambitions. Every elected official on the planet dreams of relocating and replicating foreign success stories, especially the genius of Silicon Valley.

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Press Release – Ultra -Deep Mining Network gains momentum! Hosts 1st Annual Symposium and launches new Industry focused Call for Proposal

https://www.miningexcellence.ca/

Sudbury, ON (December 11, 2015) – Canada’s Ultra-Deep Mining Network (UDMN) continues to make strides in solving the challenges that impact resource extraction in ultra-deep (below 2.5km) environments launching new Call for Proposals and Network Members share the stage highlighting their innovative solutions and commercially viable products.

The $46 million NCE business-led network, now in its 2nd year of operation, has become the leading expert in ultra-deep (below 2.5km) research and innovation.

Under the management of CEMI – Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, and key involvement from industry leaders, the UDMN currently manage 24 active projects in 4 strategic themes (Rock Stress Risk Reduction, Energy Reduction, Material Transport and Productivity and Improved Human Health and Effectiveness).

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In a Sudbury mine, physicists probe secrets of dark matter – by Kate Allen (Toronto Star – December 6, 2015)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

SUDBURY, ONT.—In a hot, dark cavern buried two kilometres below the earth’s surface, a pallet of No Name dog food lies covered in dust.

These subterranean passageways have certainly seen stranger sights than bulk dog food. There was the one-of-a-kind sanding robot, for starters. There was the giant acrylic orb, split in two pieces to fit down the mine’s narrow elevator shaft. Over the next four weeks, there will be 3.6 tonnes of liquid argon.

Every day, a parade of physicists in coveralls and head lamps rattles down the elevator and tramps through these passages — plus engineers, welders, machinists, grad students, the occasional journalist. Stephen Hawking was here.

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Battery power gains traction [Underground Mining] – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – November 2015)

http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

Diesel still rules, but the beginning of a transition to battery-powered vehicles in underground mining appears to be underway.

Industrial Fabrication, a Sudbury-based manufacturer of underground utility vehicles, has three Minecat UT150-EMVs in operation – one at Vale’s Creighton Mine, one at Glencore’s Fraser Mine, both in Sudbury, and one at Goldcorp’s Musselwhite Mine 480 kilometres north of Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario.

The Sudbury manufacturer first looked at battery power in 2004, but backed away because “at that time we felt the technology wasn’t ready for underground,” said Industrial Fabrication vice-president Daryl Rautiainen.

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[Sudbury Laurentian’s] MIRARCO CEO pushes for Ontario mining brand – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – November 20, 2015)

http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

Ontario mining cluster more than the sum of its parts

Vic Pakalnis, president and CEO of MIRARCO Mining Innovation in Sudbury, is urging the provincial Ministry of Northern Development and Mines to take the lead in the development of an Ontario mining brand.

“We have a very good reputation in the rest of the world,” said Pakalnis. “Our mining expertise in Ontario and Canada is really valued,” but much more needs to be done to build on the industry’s strengths.

Pakalnis hopes to influence the Ministry’s pending refresh of the Ontario Mineral Development Strategy, which is scheduled for release early next year.

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Is mining innovation an oxymoron? – by Nathan Stubina (Northern Miner – November 17, 2015)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

Newspapers are replete with articles denouncing the dearth of innovation in the mining sector. While we may argue about the causes – the sector’s capital intensive nature, the people who work in mining, etc. — most people will agree that the mining industry appears to be innovating at a much slower pace than other industries.

I believe that most of us are clear on why we need to innovate. The mining industry is facing many difficult challenges: lower grade ores, smaller deposits, increasing power costs, tighter margins, faltering capital markets, political risks, increased social demands, higher taxes, etc.

An example of the type of complex challenges we face: Mining executives frequently ask their engineers what the “carbon footprint” of a new process will look like – a question unheard of 30 years ago.

Nowadays, questions about water and power requirement don’t start with: ‘how much does it cost?’

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Diamonds Are Abundant – by Peter Diamandis (Huffington Post – November 16, 2015)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Peter Diamandis is the Chairman/CEO of XPRIZE.

What’s more scarce than perfect diamonds, right? Wrong.

This week, a new company called Diamond Foundry announced that it is able to “grow” hundreds of perfect, “real” diamonds (up to nine carats) in just two weeks in a lab.

Announced “above the line of supercredibility,” with the backing of Leonardo DiCaprio and 10 billionaires, my friend Martin Roscheisen is about to disrupt an industry that has been built on scarcity for centuries.

More details on Diamond Foundry in a second… but in the meantime, this audacious company really begs the question: What is truly scarce?

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Productivity most critical mining issue – by Douglas Morrison (Northern Ontario Business – November 5, 2015)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Douglas Morrison is the President and CEO of the Sudbury-based Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) and network director, Ultra-Deep Mining Network.

Of the five important issues the mining industry in Canada needs to address (demographics, mine productivity, environmental performance, exploration, and remote mine development) the most critical is productivity.

Nationally, the decline in productivity is common in every sector of the economy. Equipment gets older and needs more maintenance, or customers relocate and delivery costs increase.

In mining, operations get deeper, hotter, technically more difficult and logistically more complex, and every day these factors erode mine productivity.

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Virtual reality technologies gaining traction in South African mining sector – by Ilan Solomons (MiningWeekly.com – November 13, 2015)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The use of virtual reality (VR) technologies in the South African mining industry has grown considerably over the last year, particularly on the back of the University of Pretoria (UP) opening its R50-million Kumba Iron Ore Virtual Reality Centre for Mine Design.

Local software developer NxGN CEO Gary Lane is hopeful that VR will become more widely used in South Africa over the next three years, suggesting that UP’s VR centre, which opened in August, is “undoubtedly [the] catalyst for VR in the country”.

UP Mining Engineering Department head Professor Ronny Webber-Youngman postulates that, although people might be tempted to think that immersive VR technology is a bit superficial or simply a “cool” way of displaying information, “VR can, through either three-dimensional (3D) stereoscopic and/or immersive applications, provide first-hand experience of mining scenarios without any of the associated negative consequences”.

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Mining skills not keeping up with technology – by Sungula Nkabinde (Mineweb.com – November 10, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

No room for unskilled labour in Nick Holland’s gold mine of the future.

Mining education is not keeping up with technology, says professor Fred Cawood, director of the Wits School of Mining Institute. He was responding to Moneyweb questions relating to Gold Fields’ CEO Nick Holland’s suggestion that in the mine of the future mechanisation was not only necessary for the industry’s survival, but inevitable.

This, Holland said, was particularly true for the gold sector, where the total contribution to geological inflation is driving double-digit cost inflation, and the average grade of gold mined has fallen by 3% per annum, since the year 2000.

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NEWS RELEASE: Innovation is imperative to growth in Canadian mining, PDAC and Monitor Deloitte report finds (October 26, 2015)

http://www.relocatemagazine.com/

Click here for “Innovation Start of Play” report: http://www.pdac.ca/docs/default-source/public-affairs—geosciences/innovation-state-of-play.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Innovation is critical to success and growth at a time when the mining industry is at a crossroads, according to Innovation State of Play, a study conducted by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and Monitor Deloitte.

The study found that 81 per cent of innovation in mining falls in the offering types of innovation – how to find, extract and process more efficiently and effectively—but for innovation to thrive, mining companies need to create a viable business offering that looks beyond R&D.

Configuration innovations such as profit models, networks, structures, processes and “back of the house” activities and experience innovations that refer to services, channels, brand, and customer engagement and how an offering is delivered to customers should also be a focus.

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